The Prodigal Daughter Read online

  When they reached the platform, Florentyna felt an arm encircle her waist and a rose appeared in front of her.

  “Edward, you nut.”

  “That is not the way to address the president of the Student Council. Don’t bother to come back if you fail to win the Woolson Prize,” he said, and kissed her on the cheek.

  Neither of them noticed the smile on Miss Tredgold’s face.

  Florentyna found a car that was virtually empty. She would remember very little of the journey, for she rarely looked up from her copy of the Oresteia.

  When she arrived in Boston, she was met by a Ford “Woody” station wagon, which took her and four other girls who must have been on the same train to the Radcliffe yard. During the journey spasmodic exchanges of polite conversation punctuated long, tense silences. Florentyna was relieved to find that she had been put in a residential house at 55 Garden Street in a room of her own: she hoped she would be able to conceal how nervous she was.

  At six o’clock the girls all met in Longfellow Hall, where the dean of instruction, Mrs. Wilma Kirby-Miller, reviewed the details of the examination.

  “Tomorrow, ladies, between nine and twelve, you will write the Latin paper, and in the afternoon between three and six, the Greek paper. The following morning you will complete the examination with the general paper on current affairs. It would be foolish to wish everyone success, as you cannot all expect to win the Woolson Prize, so I will only express the hope that when you have completed the three papers, each and every one of you will feel that you could not have done better.”

  Florentyna returned to her room in Garden Street conscious of how little she knew and feeling very lonely. She went down to the ground floor and called her mother and Miss Tredgold on the pay phone. The next morning she woke at three and read a few pages of Aristotle’s Politics, but nothing would stick. When she came downstairs at seven, she walked around Radcliffe Yard several times before going to Agassiz House for breakfast. She found two telegrams awaiting her, one from her father wishing her luck and inviting her to join him for a trip to Europe in the summer. The second, from Miss Tredgold, read: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

  After breakfast, she walked once again around the yard, this time with several other girls, before taking her place in Longfellow Hall. Two hundred forty-three girls waited for the clock to chime nine, when the proctors allowed them to open the little brown envelopes placed on the desk in front of them. Florentyna read through the Latin paper once quickly and then again carefully, before selecting those questions that she felt best equipped to answer. At twelve the clock struck again and her blue books were taken away from her. She returned to her room and read Greek for two hours, eating a solitary Hershey bar for lunch. In the afternoon she attempted three questions in Greek. At six she was penning emendations when the paper had to be handed in. She walked back to her little room in Garden Street exhausted, fell onto the narrow bed and didn’t stir until it was time to eat. Over a late dinner, she listened to the same conversations with different accents from Philadelphia to Houston, and from Detroit to Atlanta: it was comforting to discover that everyone was as nervous about the outcome of the examination as she was. Florentyna knew that almost everyone who took the scholarship examination would be offered a place at Radcliffe, and twenty-two could be awarded scholarships; but only one would win the James Adams Woolson Prize.

  On the second day she opened the brown envelope containing the general paper fearing the worst but relaxed a little when she read the first question: “What changes would have taken place in America if the Twenty-second Amendment had been passed before Roosevelt became President?” She began to write furiously.

  On Florentyna’s return to Chicago, Miss Tredgold was standing on the platform waiting for her.

  “I shall not ask if you consider you have won the prize, my dear, only if you did as well as you had hoped.”

  “Yes,” said Florentyna, after some thought. “If I don’t win a scholarship, it will be because I am not good enough.”

  “You can ask for no more, child, and neither can I, so the time has come to tell you that I shall be returning to England in July.”

  “Why?” said Florentyna, stunned.

  “What do you imagine there is left for me to do for you, now that you’re off to university? I have been offered the post of head of the classics department at a girls’ school in the west country of England, starting in September, and I have accepted.”

  “‘You could not leave me if you knew how much I loved you.’”

  Miss Tredgold smiled at the quotation and produced the next line. “‘It is because of how much I love you that I must now leave you, Perdano.’”

  Florentyna took her hand, and Miss Tredgold smiled at the beautiful young woman who could already make men’s heads turn as the two women passed by.

  The next few weeks at school were not easy for Florentyna as she waited for the exam results. She tried to assure Edward that at least he was certain to gain a place at Harvard.

  “They have more sports fields than lecture halls,” she teased, “so you can’t fail.”

  He could fail and she knew it, and as each day passed, the hopes of both turned to fears. Florentyna had been told that the results of the examination would be known on April 14. On that morning the headmistress called Florentyna to her study and sat her in a corner of the room while she called the registrar at Radcliffe. The registrar already had several people holding to speak to her. At last she took Miss Allen’s call.

  “Would you be kind enough to let me know if a Miss Florentyna Rosnovski has won a scholarship to Radcliffe?” asked the headmistress.

  There was a long pause. “How do you spell that name?”

  “R-O-S-N-O-V-S-K-I.”

  Another pause. Florentyna clenched her fist. Then the registrar’s voice, audible to them both, came over the line: “No, I am sorry to tell you that Miss Rosnovski’s name is not among the list of scholars, but more than seventy percent of those who took the scholarship examination will be offered a place at Radcliffe and will be hearing from us in the next few days.”

  Neither Miss Allen nor Florentyna could mask their disappointment. As Florentyna came out of the study she found Edward waiting for her. He threw his arms around her and almost shouted, “I’m going to Harvard. And how about you? Did you win the Woolson?” But he could see the answer in her face. “I’m sorry,” he said. “How thoughtless of me,” and held her in his arms as the tears came. Some younger girls who passed them giggled. Edward took her home and she, Miss Tredgold and her mother ate dinner together in silence.

  Two weeks later, on Parents’ Day, Miss Allen presented Florentyna with the school Classics Prize, but it was no consolation. Her mother and Miss Tredgold applauded politely, but Florentyna had told her father not to come to Chicago as there was nothing particular to celebrate.

  After the presentation, Miss Allen tapped the lectern in front of her before she started to speak. “In all my years at Girls Latin,” said the headmistress in clear, resonant tones, “it has been no secret that I wanted a pupil to win the James Adams Woolson Prize Scholarship to Radcliffe.” Florentyna stared down at the wooden floorboard between her feet. “And this year,” continued Miss Allen, “I was convinced that we had produced our finest scholar in twenty-five years and that my dream would be realized. Two weeks ago, I phoned Radcliffe to discover our entrant had not won a scholarship. But today I received a telegram that is nevertheless worth reading to you.”

  Florentyna sat back, hoping her father was not responsible for some embarrassing message of congratulation.

  Miss Allen put on her reading spectacles. “‘Name of Florentyna Rosnovski not announced among general scholars because happy to inform you she is winner of James Adams Woolson Prize. Please telegraph acceptance.’” The room erupted as pupils and parents cheered. Miss Allen raised a hand, and the hall fell silent. “After twenty-five years I should have remembered that the Woolson is al